Secret Missions

by Michael Gannon

Book Overview

Historians don't often make good fiction writers, but Michael Gannon's spy novel, Secret Missions, is an entertaining and erudite story set in Florida during the Second World War. An expert on U-boat... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060177330
• ISBN13: 9780060177331
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 359 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.4" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Fun fiction with facts lurking under water

This book is a great treat for many of us who have the pleasure of sitting through many of Dr. Gannon's lectures at the University of Florida. It is without a doubt mildly autobiographical and perhaps brought to being by an historian's desire to write historically based fiction. A lot of what is in this book was brought by Gannon's love of Florida history and his passion for World War Two history. But if you probe deeper you can see this story is built on the author's life in Florida. He grew up in St. Augustine for example and was once a very highly respected, if not locally legendary, Catholic priest. More importantly there's a strong historical link between what happened in the war and the fictional plot. People really feared German spys and u boats in Florida and there are plenty of stories about it! I read this book many years ago and even had him autograph the book before class one day. It's an easy read, not hard to follow, extremely well written and what I think the writer wanted...a good summer read. As for his other books. Those are for real military history nuts. But boy what I wouldn't do to sit in one of his classes again. I received a degree in history because of him. He found one student in a sea of 200 and made a difference.

Secret Missions in the Sunshine State

Some of the old timers in Florida will talk about the state during the war and how they feared that U-boats off the coast might bomb them any time. It was easy for boomers to blow that kind of thinking off until September of 2001 when bombing on our own soil became more real to us. "Secret Missions" by Michael Gannon gives you a ride across the Sunshine State in an era long gone but he captures the feel of the spring of '42, when America had just entered the war and was quite unprepared for a dashing Nazi to sneak in and take a look around to see what we got. The setting draws you in but the characters grab you even more so. You can find yourself alternately admiring and hating Paul Krug, the German's agent on Florida soil while Father Tony D'Angelo's internal angst as he's stationed in St. Augustine might seem remote at times. Most surprising and delightful for the contemporary reader is the young woman pilot, Belle, who is intent on flying into the heart of the war, one way or another. Gannon's people drew me on for several chapters as I tried to outplot him on how a saboteur, a priest, a woman pilot and a U-boat were all going to wind up together. At the final showdown Father Tony has no advantage over a well-trained Nazi agent except his wits and his heart and that's what keeps the story homing in to its conclusion. Would be nice to hear this story on tape or perhaps you can find a student of World War II who's willing to read it to you out loud and get all those German technical terms to roll off the tongue. This book would also make an interesting movie but for a younger generations its a invaluable glimpse into a period of history gone by, making the "feel" of early World War II Florida more real than just the old timers' whispered fears of what's lurking off the coast.

yarn of early 1942 anti-submarine effort and nazi espionage

A historian, Gannon has crafted a rivoting yarn about early 1942 anti-submarine warfare and a nazi spy delivered to St. Augustine to obtain air corp fighter and bomber intelligence. A Catholic priest, Tony D'Angelo, learns of the espionage in the confessional booth and is bound by the code of confidentiality not to divulge it. He must, therefore, personally undertake the mission to find and apprehend the spy himself. The novel is an entertaining historical view of early 40's Florida, the Church and the pathetic early war campaign against the u-boats which were ravaging coastal trade